The man who changed college football is on the phone from Jackson, Miss., a 63-year-old college coach sorting through the final days of the offseason. He is looking back, gazing inward, trying to explain how a small-college coach in Iowa and a pirate-loving lawyer transformed the way the game is played. How a simple offense without a real playbook changed the game you watch on Saturdays.
Some of this story is known, he says. Most of it, in fact. But if you want to know the secret — if you want to know how a spread offense called the Air Raid revolutionized a sport, how the game of college football got itself in such a darn hurry — you first must listen to a story about Don Henley.